DestinedToDie quest Showcase

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:42 pm

This mod adds a scamp named Krieps into Balmora's shop district.

I would prefer to have him as an encounter in a daedric shrine, but due this being a showcase, I just put him into a location that's easy to get to.

I'm aware that other scamps in the vanilla game do not talk in such a way, but to me it makes much more sense for them to be beastlike.

Edit: Fixed 1 grammar mistake.

Edit2: Okay. I've changed to a more suitable reward and the scamp no longer uses setfight. Haven't uploaded yet. Will do that when I have a time and death script.

Edit3: Wander has now been set to 5. Moved some topics off to greetings. Added a time condition and a death script.

Post by **rot** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:24 pm

Nice (if short) dialogue! Reposting IRC comments:

- time (conditions should make sure time has indeed passed as it is implied by dialogue)
- the 'good' entry that makes the scamp attack by "setfight 100" should also have a "StartCombat, player", otherwise it may take quite some time for the scamp to react
- for the sake of thoroughness, may want to add different greetings to the scamp for later quest stages - especially since you're supposed to have waited some time inbetween
- you already know about the Ring of Toxic Cloud and balance

- if the scamp gets killed before the quest log reaches its 'natural' conclusion, it'll need a Finished entry

Rats · Post by **Rats** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:28 pm

rot wrote:Ring of Toxic Cloud and balance

Haha, the One Ring!

Also: Welcome to the forums, DestinedToDie!

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 4:40 am

Hesitantly doubleposted for the update. Feel free to try the new version.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 6:24 am

Scripts changed according to example. Dialogue is now ordered.

I moved the greetings to 5, then found out in Irc that I should instead have stuck with greetings 1, but testing ingame it doesn't seem like being nude affects Krieps's dialogue in any way, so I kept the greetings on 5.

Post by **rot** » Sun Feb 23, 2014 6:33 pm

DestinedToDie wrote: testing ingame it doesn't seem like being nude affects Krieps's dialogue in any way, so I kept the greetings on 5.

Yes, creatures only get dialogue that has been especially conditioned for their ID (which is why you normally can't talk to them)

- the greetings entries are indeed regrouped now, but at the very top of the list, which can cause the same kinds of problems as them being at the very bottom (incompatibilities). They'd best be placed inbetween TR greetings (loading it with Mainland.esp, not .esm)

- both scripts are missing a whitespace on journal updates

Code: Select all

		Journal"Krieps the weak" 4

The scripting engine is fickle about syntax, so this might work in this case but not in another. The overall rule of thumb is staying consistent on the same line (if you use commas, use them all, otherwise only whitespaces)

-(seems creatures can use enchanted items more than once, my bad)edit: no that's right

- on the script KriepsDeath, you may also want not to give journal 4 if journal is already at 3 ? (remember you saying you wanted the last entry to be vague for effect)

- the greeting with 'StartCombat, player' should *also* SetFight as you did before, or the scamp will stop being agressive after 3 days of being in a different cell. SetFight ensures this becomes his default behaviour

As for including this in TR, what I'd suggest:
- find a likely daedric ruin in TR to host the scamp - one that isn't already linked to quests, preferrably to a prince that makes sense for a scamp (not Azura?), preferrably with some space to run around,
- give the scamp 100 fight and 100 flee AI ratings by default (should run away upon detecting the PC), and script it so he stops combat when the PC gets in talking range - you can't talk to a creature you're in combat with (I can do the scripting but feel free to give it a shot for practice). This has the advantage of being more natural than a scamp just standing around doing nothing, but mostly makes it less likely for ranged/magic players to kill it before noticing it has a special name (because they might notice the odd behaviour) without being handholdy

- rename things using TR standards - you can look at other TR quests for those, basically for the journal i'd be TR_mX_wil_... (for wilderness) with X being the map of the daedric ruin you put it in, critter would be TR_scamp_Krieps, etc.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 9:41 am

I really liked your idea of making the scamp flee by default, but that doesn't seem to work as you'd think.

Kriep sometimes runs right at you to attack, even with 100 flee. He might flee from the start as well, or start fleeing in the middle of combat. Or just fight through the whole thing.

I thought of a different scenario where he does just that, but will become neutral and initiate dialogue when he is hurt. Does that sound okay, too?

Post by **rot** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 11:57 am

Ya I didn't expect this to work without some tweaking, maybe Fight 90 instead of 100; Flee I don't think you can set higher than 100 in the CS? but something that may work is exceptionally setting the creature type to Beast instead of Daedra & giving it a constant Demoralize curse (unless turn undead works on daedra-type creatures? don't know)...
The creature attacking might be due to proximity (fleeing AI still attacks if you get close). Another thing to try is manually triggering StartCombat from a distance to force detection, and see whether it makes it run

Might still fail and AI is generally unreliable either way, so don't sweat it if nothing seems to work, it's not that important

ForceGreeting (if any - think it'd work better by being less obvious) should probably be conditioned on the PC being close.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 12:14 pm

Fight 90 and flee 100 was the first thing I tried after failure. Didn't work, though. I will have to fiddle around a bit.

Post by **rot** » Mon Feb 24, 2014 8:52 pm

Silly me, hadn't noticed you'd added a spell on Krieps, that's why he doesn't run (and yes, enchanted items are indeed only used once by the AI). All you need to do is set his Magicka to 0 and he'll run away (then restore magicka to a real value when he attacks)

And it seems you *can* engage dialogue with a fleeing creature. If you can confirm, then there isn't even any further scripting required on stopping combat/...

edit: if you haven't found a shrine yet, "Haddadalmalu, Entry" looks like a good choice.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 4:53 am

Set it to 0 and he still uses that spell once. I'm going to remove it and add it back on one of the greetings.

Edit: Everything is working great! Now I only need to rename a couple of things.

Rats · Post by **Rats** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:00 pm

Really looking forward to see the final thing, DtD

Were aching to have another quester amongst our ranks!

Ironed Maidens · Post by **Ironed Maidens** » Tue Feb 25, 2014 10:15 pm

I am veeeery interested in this showcase. You've got a lot of talent, DTD!

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 7:45 am

Done! Quest now starts in Haddadalmalu, entry. Krieps has more speed this time and might give you the run if your character has low speed and you don't react fast enough. The layout of the dungeon works well, as he often runs into a dead end, should you not have enough speed to catch him.

I did have my troubles with placing him. F simply wouldn't work. This is not visible to the player, but I think he floats in CS.

Post by **rot** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 9:50 am

Everything seems to be in order, oh and member recommended for questing. Someone will be here soon to push buttons and promote you to Developer, etc., congratulations!

The formulation usually goes "for questing & NPCing" - you'd have to show a bit more, 'regular', dialogue if you want to do large-scale NPCing but it was my understanding you wanted to do more quests in that style to begin with? Feel free to post your designs in the quest boards for feedback & approval, TR needs more short quests too.

Will create a proper claim to host your quest soon. The journal will be renamed with _wil before merge, because location names in journals are used for cities/non-hostile settlements) Also,

rot wrote:(loading it with Mainland.esp, not .esm)

I was referring to the file you can get in the latest post at [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=23677]this thread[/url], which is the "current" file we work on. Having things depend on the .esm (older, public release version) makes things more difficult - won't be a huge problem to switch dependencies in this case, but in the future please use the .esp!

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 12:32 pm

rot wrote: I was referring to the file you can get in the latest post at [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=23677]this thread[/url], which is the "current" file we work on.

Couldn't help it - that thread is inaccessible as a normal member. Didn't even know it existed.

Great to hear that everything's good.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 12:56 pm

rot wrote: I was referring to the file you can get in the latest post at [url=http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=23677]this thread[/url], which is the "current" file we work on.

Couldn't help it - that thread is inaccessible as a normal member. Didn't even know it existed.

Great to hear that everything's good.

Post by **rot** » Wed Feb 26, 2014 8:08 pm

Didn't know/forgot that, sorry! Definitely something we should address, though.

Here's the claim for your quest
edit2: It's here :
tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24428

You can claim it pro forma (press the Claim button), but I've already removed the esm dependency and renamed what needed renaming so nothing else you need to do. (last note: setting Fight to 0 means the creature won't defend itself, to get back to default behaviour reset to 30)

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 9:08 am

Claimed it and the thread disappeared - no access.

Arvisrend had a look at the mod in chat and said that the KriepsTimer script should contain the second part in the first if sentence, since that way only 1 command check is run. He also recommended I use >= 2 instead of == 2 in DaysPassed. I'd go make those changes in the version of the mod you uploaded, but I still don't have access to mainland.esp.

Post by **rot** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 11:42 am

It disappeared into 'quests:pending' which you couldn't see because the promote-buttons haven't yet been pushed. It's now in Claimed, where quests stay while worked on and until review (which arvis just did) or merge. Visible again: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320695

note to self: apply same changes on the Mainland example script that was based on

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 12:02 pm

Changed the script. Removed a whitespace. To the best of my knowledge, everything works as it should.

Post by **arvisrend** » Thu Feb 27, 2014 10:13 pm

Congrats to the promotion, DestinedToDie! (So far for quest designs and scripting; a quest like this isn't sufficient to judge your dialogue writing.)

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Sat Mar 01, 2014 9:48 am

arvisrend wrote:Congrats to the promotion, DestinedToDie! (So far for quest designs and scripting; a quest like this isn't sufficient to judge your dialogue writing.)

Wrote some dialogue today. Found here - http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=24429&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

Edit: A bit more dialogue here: http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?p=320748#320748

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Tue Mar 10, 2015 7:47 pm

Hello. So I've been working on this for a year and it looks like I've finally finished my second quest.

Travel to Ald-Ruhn to find a newly-joined member of House Redoran, eager to prove his worth as a fighter. But beware, he wields a special blade and is not one to give up so easily.

As with before, I'd like to see if this can be integrated into TR. It is fairly easy to move this guy anywhere you want.

Also, feel free to suggest additional lines. I have a feeling Tondollari might come up with a few really good ones and it's easy to fiddle with the script.

Tondollari · Post by **Tondollari** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:41 pm

A few notes:

-For detecting death, use [url=http://www.uesp.net/morrow/editor/mw_cscommands.shtml#ondeath]OnDeath[/url] instead of GetHealth. GetHealth can conflict with restoration spells.

-"The one to give up first loses" implies that there is a way to stop the spar, but I don't see any way to surrender. The easiest way to do this might be to have the actor in an interior cell, say "The first one to flee loses", and use [url=http://www.uesp.net/morrow/editor/mw_cscommands.shtml#cellchanged]CellChanged[/url] to detect when the player "surrenders".

-Since this is set up as a spar, and not explicitly to the death, it seems that the actor should be able to surrender too. When his health goes below a certain threshold, perhaps he could surrender and offer up the sword to the player?

-For some reason, if this guy is fatigued when he dies, he doesn't fully die and lies on the floor heaving and moaning. I'm not sure why this might be; maybe someone else can explain.

-The sword's gold value is a little low.

DestinedToDie · Post by **DestinedToDie** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 5:25 am

The idea is that this honorable redoran NEVER gives up, no matter what.

I was surprised by the fatigue glitch as well, but added sethealth 0 in his script and he died correctly in my playthrough. I take it this didn't work in yours and thus the confusion? This is probably caused by using GetHealth.

Yeah, I forgot to edit the gold value.

Tondollari · Post by **Tondollari** » Fri Mar 13, 2015 5:34 am

DestinedToDie wrote:The idea is that this honorable redoran NEVER gives up, no matter what.

OK, then the dialogue should make it clear this is a fight to the death. Also, I think the word "spar" is generally used for nonlethal training matches, not deathmatches.